Lecturing the wrong people

British newspapers report that one reason Prince Charles and his new wife, Camilla, are visiting America is so he can persuade President Bush and, hopefully, the rest of the United States to be more tolerant of Muslims.

The prince, successor to the British throne if anything happens to Queen Elizabeth II, thinks that Americans, under Bush's leadership, have become "too confrontational" with Islam since 9-11. He reportedly believes the United States blames all Muslims for the actions of a small minority of extremists; consequently, he will be urging the U.S. president to build "bridges of friendship" to Islam.

The prince sees himself as Great Britain's "defender of the faiths," which includes Islam. Hence, he plans to defend that religion enthusiastically while in this country.

The prince would be better advised to return to the traditional role of British royalty - which is ceremonial, not political. What does the esteemed Charles mean by "a small minority of extremists"? Was the elected president of Iran speaking only for a small minority of Islamic extremists when he recently whipped his Muslim countrymen into a wild frenzy of approval by publicly calling for the destruction of a nation-state - to "wipe Israel off the map"?

Jews, Christians and the West don't need lectures from Prince Charles or any other Islam apologists. Let him take his bridge-building message to hate-mongering Iran - or to Indonesia, where last week machete-wielding Islamic militants beheaded three Christian teenage girls.

Or perhaps the good prince should have a talk with his own country's prime minister. Doesn't he know that Tony Blair is President Bush's partner in combating al-Qaida and other Muslim terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe?

Or that Blair has also called radical Islam an "evil ideology" that's posing a domestic threat to British citizens, and for which the P.M. is asking parliament to make it much easier to incarcerate or deport Muslims?

Before Prince Charles starts lecturing Americans on what's good about Islam, he needs to bone up on what's bad about it. Many of the Muslims he is so eager to defend would behead the prince if they could get their hands on him, just as they would behead all Western "infidels" if they could.